Courage Through Reframing Fear

This session introduces you to the seventh of the 8 C’s of Internal Family Systems: Courage, by guiding you to reframe fear as sensations within the body rather than as overwhelming stories or threats. Through mindful awareness and gentle inquiry, you’ll learn to approach fear with openness and curiosity, allowing you to face it without being controlled by it. This practice helps you build inner bravery and resilience, empowering you to move forward even when discomfort arises. This track is taken from the course Sitting in the Self: Exploring the 8 C’s of Internal Family Systems.

Transcript

Hello,

And welcome to the session,

I invite you to take a seat or lie down and get yourself comfortable,

You can close down the eyes if you wish,

And take some deep,

Slow breaths in through the nose and out through the mouth,

And with each breath allow yourself to acknowledge and release any physical,

Mental or energetic blockages,

Along with anything else that may distract you from this session,

And for the next few minutes all you need to do is breathe and be here to receive the session,

Now as your mind calms and your body begins to settle,

Take a moment to set an intention for this session,

May this session ground me in presence,

Focus my mind and open me to the guidance,

Clarity and insight this practice holds for me today,

May it bring me closer to embodying my highest self,

Ok well done,

In todays session we are going to be looking at the internal family systems quality of courage,

Through the reframing of fear,

As the story you make of sensation,

So courage once again is similar to confidence,

But it's more active,

It's you taking steps towards living and being and doing,

It's acting towards your highest purpose,

It's overcoming your fear,

It's moving forward,

It's being,

It's embodied,

It's powerful,

And from this place,

From this space if you can feel courage even just saying the words,

I feel an energy inside,

And that energy is a connection to the self,

This isn't about blind courage,

This isn't about self sacrifice,

This is about you just being in your power,

If you are in your power,

You are in yourself,

If you are in your power,

You are confident,

If you are in your power,

You are calm,

Now you might need to act decisively,

Courageously,

But you will still be calm,

You will be thinking with clarity,

With curiosity,

And with connection to yourself and to the wider world,

Now the practice we're going to look at today is reframing fear as the story you make of sensations,

Now I'm using fear because it's quite strong and it's it's relatively easy to invoke in a session,

But you can do this with any feeling,

Doesn't have to be fear,

All feelings,

But in today's session we're going to look at fear,

At just physical sensations that our mind is interpreting and making a story,

Our mind is very good at sort of trying to make sense of things,

It's too good,

There's a bunch of sensations in the body,

A bunch of internal reactions and your mind's like huh,

Let's put all this together,

Fear,

And then it becomes this self-perpetuating sort of response,

We fall out of calmness,

Our body gets tense,

Our heart rate increases,

Our breathing shallows,

And we just,

We start freaking out,

I'm fearful,

And then we get into this overwhelmed cycle,

So we take a breath,

And we get curious,

We start practicing some mindfulness,

We have some self-compassion,

We start looking at the feelings that are arising as feelings,

As sensations,

As things happening in the body,

Not as the overarching label of fear,

We try and break it down and look inside,

It's like what am I actually feeling right now,

Okay I'm feeling a bit of tension,

A bit of sort of gooeyness in the belly,

A bit of bladder issues,

A bit of your heart rate fluttering,

A bit of tension,

Fear is the story you make of the sensations that arise,

And courage is you doing the thing regardless,

Fear can shrink your point of view,

So we're going to adopt the principle of perspective,

Perspective opens space to see the fear as a part,

As a part,

Not as a truth,

And we act anyway,

Now what I want you to do for today's practice is to just bring to mind something that sort of scares you a little bit,

That's a little bit fear-inducing,

Not extreme,

Something that is fear-inducing that hopefully you've overcome already,

So for me I have a bit of a fear of heights,

Walking over an overpass over a busy freeway really puts my body into a fear response,

Now for others it could be speaking on stage,

It could be doing certain actions or events or whatever it is,

Swimming,

Driving,

Flying,

Whatever,

It will be something that causes you fear,

Maybe it's you know an animal like a spider or something,

Something that is a little bit fear-inducing,

I would like you to picture that,

Picture you in that scene,

So for me I'm picturing myself walking over a particular overpass with the cars running underneath,

And you know for me it's loud,

It's high,

And my my vision starts to get a bit distorted,

And my body starts to tense,

And you know it's noisy,

It's overwhelming,

And I can just feel it,

So I want you to take a breath,

And I invite you to come into your own story of fear,

Take a breath and get curious,

Take another breath,

And get compassionate to yourself,

Take another breath,

And start to unpick what's actually happening,

What specific sensations are arising,

Just try and see the sensations for what they are,

In the same way a bird call just sounds,

These sensations are just arising,

With enough practice of clarity and mindfulness we can start to see that these sensations just come,

And then our mind puts stories over the top of it,

What if this happens,

What if that happens,

You start inventing false truths and narratives and things,

Take a breath,

Step back from it all,

And just feel the feelings in our body,

And just be there for it,

Just breathe into that space,

There's no judgments,

There's nothing that has to be done,

It's just about being with your body in this moment,

It's no longer fear,

That's the story,

It's okay,

I'm feeling this in my body,

I'm feeling these other things in my body,

Now you can choose,

Fear is interesting and all emotions are like this,

But you can choose to reframe all of those feelings into something else,

Is it fear,

Or is it your body getting you ready to act,

Right,

Is it preparation,

All those feelings,

You know,

The feelings of fear are also,

And you know,

It's the same bodily systems,

The feelings of excitement,

High-level performers don't ever,

Well not all,

In different contexts,

But often they still feel quote-unquote fear,

But they've reframed those feelings as excitement,

As preparations,

As them getting ready to act,

And they do that by checking in,

Feeling,

And not allowing the story that these sensations equal fear to arise,

They do this through meditation,

Through breath work,

Through curiosity,

And through mindfulness,

They do this by knowing that it can be done,

By practicing as we are practicing,

First in our minds with a visualized version of the fear,

Then closer and closer to,

You know,

Game day,

So to speak,

So for me,

I visualize this,

I feel this feeling about going over the overpass,

And then I practice it,

I take myself to the overpass,

Get myself into a sense of self,

And I walk across,

And the feelings bombard me,

And it's a lot,

But I'm courageous,

I try,

I persist,

I turn up,

I walk,

And I don't allow,

Or I do my best not to allow all of those feelings to overwhelm me into this sense of fear,

Now if it was overwhelming,

That's okay,

I still was courageous because I turned up and tried,

I still got that lesson,

Me getting over the overpass isn't the win,

Me turning up and trying is the win,

You doing or engaging in the visualization is the win,

Now we want to make ourselves,

You know,

Quote unquote,

Win this as much as possible,

To be in the sense of self,

Our goal of this course,

Of this practice today,

Is to encourage us to be in the sense of self,

But the way to get into the sense of self,

Or the opposite of the sense of self,

The opposite of courage in this sense,

Is fear,

Is,

You know,

A feeling based overwhelm,

Fear is a very strong one to work with,

But it can be any feeling,

The opposite of fear is courage,

So if you can learn to reframe fear into preparation,

Into excitement,

Into you getting ready,

Or at least just to recognize all of the sensations are just sensations and not the story that your mind is trying to put them all together as,

You'll start to find a sense of courage,

You'll start to act,

And you'll look back,

And you'll see yourself being able to visualize,

And then slowly overcome the things that you once feared,

That will give you a solid sense of the self,

And a solid sense of courage,

And it will lead you down some great paths in life,

Because behind fear lies everything you've been waiting for,

Because you and myself,

And we all hold ourselves back from things that we would love to be able to do,

Be,

Or become,

Because we're afraid of something,

But if we can reframe that,

Be courageous,

We step into that deep sense of self,

And it could be beautiful,

So I encourage you to take another slow calm breath,

In through the nose,

And out through the mouth,

And just allow yourself to come back to your body,

And open your eyes,

And sort of check back in,

Just any feelings,

Any lingering feelings of fear,

Just keep breathing slowly and calmly,

And just remind yourself,

These aren't feelings of fear,

That's,

That's the story,

What are the sensations,

What is,

What is just arising in the body,

Just keep breathing calmly,

And if you come to the end of the session,

I want to remind you that if you have any questions about courage,

Or about reframing fear,

Or about internal family systems in general,

You can ask them in the classroom,

I'll be there to answer your questions,

I'll see you in the next session.

This track was taken from the course,

Sitting in the Self,

Exploring the eight C's of internal family systems,

It's out now and available on my insight timer profile,

I encourage you to check it out,

See you there.

Reviews

This is really helpful in dealing with fear. Thank you.